Now that's chutzpah

The BBC reports that Michael Meacher, former environment minister in Tony Blair's Labour government, is urging Tony Blair to pressure George Bush on measures to counteract "climate change".

"The US cannot count, despite its hegemony and its unique power, on the automatic support - even from close allies - if the US ignores their fundamental concerns," Mr Meacher told The World at One on BBC Radio 4.

"We have been a very strong, some of us think almost too subservient, an ally over recent years and it's time, I think, for the political goodwill which has been generated by our support to be called in."

"We" have been a very strong ally? How rich coming from the likes of Meacher, who has been anything but an ally to the US. Let's take a look at the "poltical goodwill" that Meacher has offered George Bush and the US.

Check out this article, written by Meacher in September 2003, titled "This War on Terrorism is Bogus", in which he peddles the conspiracy theory that security authorities in the US knew about the planned 9/11 attack before the event, but purposely allowed it to happen in order to provide a pretext for attacking Afghanistan and Iraq.

Or consider this piece, written by Meacher in November 2004, in which he rhetorically asks "Did Dubya rig the election?" and passes on long-debunked conspiracy theories about the 2000 election as fact.

Or this one, from April this year, in which he asserts that "America is usurping the democratic will in Iraq", even as he laments the demise of Saddam Hussein, saying that "The US, having destroyed the sole major secular government in the region, is now at risk of replacing it with a theocratic regime."

Even as recently as three weeks ago, Meacher was assailing US motives over Iraq, saying "The reason they attacked Iraq is nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction, it was nothing to do with democracy in Iraq, it was nothing to do with the human rights abuses of Saddam Hussein....The connection [with oil] is 100%. It is absolutely overwhelming."

Let's be clear. Meacher is not a friend of either George Bush or America. Meacher has never been a friend to either George Bush or America. It takes unmitigated gall for this man, of all people, to lecture Blair on what he is owed for the support and goodwill "they" collectively have shown towards the US.

Oh, and by the way, don't you think the BBC, as it broadcasts Meacher's lecture on what Bush owes his allies, has a responsibility to inform its audience of just how much of an ally Meacham himself has been?

Who needs better "understanding"?

The BBC today reports on the fact that Americans are snapping up Korans, reportedly out of a desire to better understand Islam.

CAIR [Council on American-Islamic Relations] is requesting Muslims all over the
world to sponsor free copies for those who wish to improve their knowledge of
the book.

I suppose it can be a good thing for non-Muslims to better understand Muslims, but it strikes me that CAIR could do a lot more good if it urged Muslims to better understand and accept non-Muslims. Afterall, it is Muslims who are waging a holy war against the rest of us, not vice-versa.

BTW, I should mention that the BBC article, in putting the story into the context of Korangate at Guantanamo, does a fairly good and even-handed job. It accurately describes the reported incidents as "mishandling" rather than "desecration", and includes the fact that the Pentagon report detailed both detainee and guard "mishandling". Small things, true, but like a baby saying its first words, such rare things can be cause for great excitement. (The report, being unattributed, might also be a wire report rather than a BBC report, which could help explain its failure to demonize America.)

Add one more to the list

The WSJ has an editorial today criticizing Amnesty International, not just for their recent over-the-top characterization of Guantanamo as a "gulag", but also for their activities on behalf of terrorists.

We don't recount this story to suggest Amnesty was actively in league with
Saddam. But it shows that, even after 9/11, Amnesty still didn't think terrorism
was a big deal. In its eagerness to suggest that every detainee with a Muslim
name is some kind of political prisoner, and by extension to smear America and
its allies, Amnesty has given the concept of "aid and comfort" to the enemy an
all-too-literal meaning.

Could it be that Amnesty is becoming the new greatest recruiting tool...oh, never mind.

Greatest tool?

Remember when, in the days and weeks following 9/11, poverty was called the greatest recruiting tool for terrorism? Those were the days. Now there seems to be no end to the number of things vying for the distinction of being the greatest recruiting tool for terrorism.

Consider:

"[With the Iraq war we] have created the greatest recruiting tool possible for bin Laden and his ilk." - Bob Boorstin, as quoted by Bob Herbert in The New York Times.

"[President George Bush is] the best recruiting sergeant ever for al-Qaida" - British Ambassador to Italy, Sir Ivor Roberts, quoted in The Guardian

"A more insulting, inflammatory message to the world's Muslims and Arabs--and a more effective recruiting tool for groups like Al Qaeda--can scarcely be imagined." - The Nation, editorializing on The Horror of Abu Ghraib

And now the latest:

"[Guantanamo] has become the greatest propaganda tool that exists for recruiting of terrorists around the world..." - Joe Biden, suggesting that he has a better imagination than The Nation

Like the term Nazi, it seems that "terrorist recruiting tool" has come to mean little more than "something I don't like." Your disapproval, along with your lack of originality, is noted, Mr. Biden.

Speaking of Gulags...

The Weekly Standard has an excellent article on the incoherence and moral inconsistency of the positions staked out by various human rights organizations - Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch to name two - regarding the United States.

The United States government and its leadership are a gang of criminals who should be isolated, sanctioned, arrested, and condemned as in principle no better than the undeniably criminal Sudanese government--but, by the way, it would be excellent if the Great Satan would also mount its noble charger, rattle its weapons, gird up its loins, and intervene to defend the people of Sudan. Please report to the International Criminal Court's dock in The Hague to be tried for torture and war crimes and what-not--but on your way, could you stop by Darfur, using military force if necessary to protect the people from genocide, make sure the peace treaty ending the war in the south doesn't fall apart, and don't do anything that we might regard as unnecessary collateral damage (we'll be watching, and we'll add anything we don't like to the list of your crimes). And, oh yes, be sure to arrest and bring the wicked Sudanese leaders and militias along with you to The Hague, so they can be prosecuted after we finish with you.

There is something morally perverse about this.

Yes, there is. Read it all.

More misleading

In an article about Joe Biden's suggestion that Guantanamo should be shut down (more on which, later), the BBC yet again conveys a false impression of this whole Korangate business. After detailing Biden's comments, the BBC says:

The comments came two days after the Pentagon admitted that guards at Guantanamo Bay had desecrated the Koran.

This is misleading on two counts. First off, the Pentagon didn't "admit" anything. It reported it. Recall (as the BBC seems unwilling to do) that it was the Pentagon itself which instigated the investigation into the alleged incidents, and then issued its findings. Second, the Pentagon neither reported nor admitted to "desecration". It reported 5 incidents of confirmed "mishandling" of Korans by guards, by which it meant violations of its own very comprehensive policy on the treatment of prisoner's Korans. The word "desecration" does not appear anywhere in the report, and rightly so. Whether or not this "mishandling" represents a desecration depends entirely upon one's own beliefs. (To me, splashing water on a Koran...or a bible, or Torah scrolls, or a copy of Atlas Shrugged...hardly represents a "desecration".) Apparently the BBC has adopted the belief system of the terrorists in Guantanamo as its own.

The BBC also noted that:

Last month, Amnesty International called the detention centre for alleged terrorists "the gulag of our time", referring to the system of forced labour camps in the Soviet Union in which millions of prisoners died.

Of course, the BBC fails to tell its readers that the head of Amnesty International USA, William Schulz, has since acknowledged, in an interview with FOX News, that he "doesn't know for sure" what is actually happening in Guantanamo. Also notable from that interview, was this exchange:

Chris Wallace (FOX News): I'd like to finish, if I might, by quoting The Washington Post, which has hardly been a supporter of President Bush's and the Bush administration's treatment of prisoners. This is what they had to say in a recent editorial..."Turning a report on prisoner detention into another excuse for Bush-bashing or American-bashing undermines Amnesty's legitimate criticisms of US policies." Is it possible, sir, that you have hurt, not helped your cause?

Schulz: Chris, I don't think I'd be on this station, on this program today with you if Amnesty hadn't said what it said and President Bush and his colleagues haven't responded as they did. If I had come to you two weeks ago and said, "Chris, I'd like to go on Fox with you just to talk about US detention policies at Guantanamo and elsewhere", I suspect you wouldn't have given me an invitation.

So, there you have it. Amnesty made the "gulag" characterization not for informative purposes, but rather for it sensationalizing impact. And the BBC continues to oblige them by passing on the characterization as a serious claim rather than the publicity stunt that it was.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention....The BBC identified Biden as "a leading senator and member of the Foreign Relations committee." Its British audience might also have been interested to know of Biden's connections to the Labour party's own Neil Kinnock.

BBC: Cox sucks

Gee, I wonder whether the BBC disapproves of Bush's new nominee to head the SEC.

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) is expected to adopt a more "laissez-faire" approach if Christopher Cox is confirmed as its new chairman.

President Bush named the Republican congressman as SEC chairman, but the job must be confirmed by the US Senate.

Current chief William Donaldson quit on Wednesday, raising doubts over whether the finance watchdog will stick to its tough stance on corporate misconduct.

Mr Cox, a former corporate lawyer, is seen as close to the finance industry.

Experts say he could move the SEC towards a lighter touch on regulation.

Some commentators have claimed that his SEC predecessor Mr Donaldson quit the post having come under pressure from Republicans who objected to his hard-line reforms.

Note the constant use of the passive tense. The SEC "is expected to..." Expected by who? The BBC doesn't say. Doubts have been raised. Who has these doubts? The BBC doesn't say. Mr. Cox is "seen as" close to the finance industry. Seen by who? The BBC doesn't say. Even when the passive voice is abandoned, the actors are vague and unknown. Anonymous "experts" say this and "some commentators" say that. Hell, search the internet long enough and you can find "some commentator" saying virtually anything.

Clearly the BBC would like us to come away thinking that the current SEC chairman has been forced from his job by Republicans, who plan on replacing him with a guy who is going to turn a blind eye to corporate malfeasance. However, if we look at only the substance that the BBC has provided, it turns out that all we know is that President Bush has nominated a guy named Chris Cox to replace the outgoing SEC chairman.

The rest of the piece provides us with the following bits of information:

1) President Bush has nice things to say about his nominee.

2) An academic (perhaps one of the BBC's "experts"?) thinks Cox will be "a major change in direction". How or why we don't know.

3) Cox sponsored a piece of legislation in 1995 that some people liked and others didn't.

4) A class-action lawyer doesn't like Cox.

5) California's Democrat state treasurer doesn't like Cox.

6) US trade unions "are understood" to not like Cox. Exactly who this is "understood" by, or how they came to this understanding, the BBC keeps to itself.

Quality information, Beeb. Oh, and one more thing: What's up with the quotation marks in the headline, New SEC head 'signals big change'? At no point in the entire article is anyone ever quoted saying the words "signals big change". Who exactly are you quoting?

BTW, compare this article with the Beeb's piece on previous SEC head William Donaldson when he took over in 2003. Note how almost the entire piece is given over to Donaldson's own words, while in this recent piece quotations from Cox are comprised of a single, 6 word sentence fragment.

BBC outed by WSJ

The WSJ's OpinionJournal.com has a nice article today by Scott Norvell on the problems with the BBC. He even highlights his piece with the same Justin Webb confession that I've put at the top of this site. Worth a read.

Korangate

It is bad enough that the BBC thinks this ridiculous Koran "desecration" story at Guantanamo is worthy of its coverage, but is it too much to ask that it get its facts straight when covering it? Apparently it is.

The US has given details of how guards mishandled copies of the Koran at its
Guantanamo Bay prison, including a case of one copy being deliberately kicked.
It was part of an inquiry sparked by a magazine report, later retracted, that a
Koran was flushed down a toilet.

No, the inquiry was not sparked by a magazine report that a Koran was flushed down a toilet. The inquiry had been underway well before the Newsweek report, and indeed the Newsweek report was about what the already-existing investigation had discovered. This is what the article in the May 9 Newsweek said:

Investigators probing interrogation abuses at the U.S. detention center
at Guantanamo Bay have confirmed some infractions alleged in internal FBI
e-mails that surfaced late last year. Among the previously unreported cases,
sources tell NEWSWEEK: interrogators, in an attempt to rattle suspects, flushed
a Qur'an down a toilet and led a detainee around with a collar and dog
leash.

Newsweek was, of course, wrong. The investigation did not confirm the flushing of a Koran down a toilet, as we now know. But only in the strange world inhabited by BBC reporters could an investigation have been "sparked" by an incorrect report about the conclusions of that very same investigation.

Why is this mistake important? Because it perpetuates the myth that, in the absence of media pressure, the US military is uninterested in and unaccountable for the misbehaviors of those acting in its behalf. This is a conceit of the media in general, and is a deceit that is perpetuated particularly by the BBC. The fact is that the US military is so image-conscious that it even investigates and reports seriously on these trivial and petty "abuses" of Korans. (Korans which, by the way, were provided to the prisoners by who? The US, of course.)

BTW, if Koran "desecration" is such an offense to Muslims, and such an important issue for the BBC to cover, why is it that this report doesn't make a single mention of the number of Korans which were surely destroyed?

Profiles in Bias

The BBC often publishes "Profiles" of people who happen to be topical in the news and with whom, presumably, the BBC feels their audience might not be familiar. Compare and contrast the style and approach in two relatively recent profiles, one for Dominique De Villepin who has just been appointed Prime Minister in France, and the other for John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for US representative to the UN.

The first two lines on De Villepin:

France's new Prime Minister, Dominique de Villepin, is best known for leading the charge against US policy in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The silver-haired politician, once referred to as a "diplomatic pin-up" by a newspaper, cuts a dashing figure in the often grey world of French politics.

A newspaper? Who cares what "a newspaper" said about him. "A newspaper" also once referred to, and even pictured De Villepin as, a "weasel". Why wasn't that mentioned as part of his profile?

On the other hand, this is a Brit's first glimpse of Bolton, as seen through the filter of the BBC:

Employees at the UN in New York have described reactions ranging from
disbelief to horror when John Bolton was nominated as US ambassador to the
UN.

So, one "cuts a dashing figure" and the other inspires "disbelief" and "horror". Just the facts on old Auntie BBC.

Filibuster mania

Yesterday Powerline pointed out that Sidney Blumenthal, ex-Clinton aide and current columnist for The Guardian, has been peddling misinformation about the whole filibuster imbroglio to his British audience. The Guardian is not the only outlet here that covered the issue, nor, unfortunately, do they win the prize for the most ill-informed coverage of it. That distinction must surely belong to the BBC, which published at least 3 separate articles on the filibuster fight, each of which was as bad as the last.

The first article, written by Justin Webb back in April, portrays the filibuster as a warm-hearted American tradition, and puts forward Senator Robert Byrd as a loveable practioner and defender of it in the mold of Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes to Washington. Unfortunately, Webb fails to inform his readers that the filibuster which Byrd, a former member of the KKK, so fondly remembers was in fact his attempt to prevent passage of the landmark 1964 Civil Rights Bill. I guess filling his readers in on that fact would have detracted a bit from the warm and cuddly feeling the reader is suppose to get. Besides, he had more important facts to focus on, like the fact that this “plot to ban the filibuster” had been hatched on behalf of “evangelical Christians who desperately want President Bush's conservative judges to get into the courts and start dispensing their kind of justice.” Riiiight.

The BBC's next attempt to explain the issue came at the hands of one James Coomarasamy. This was a less flippant and, on the surface at least, more in-depth analysis than what Webb could muster of what was going on. But still it failed utterly to capture the reality of the situation. Apart from the usual imbalances and leading language common to biased reporting, along with outright factual errors (he claims that the term "nuclear option" derives from the "destructive power" of eliminating the filibuster), Coomarasamy fails to note some of the most relevant points of the dispute: how historically rare, prior its most recent application, the use of the filibuster has been with regard to judicial nominations; the recent politicization of the judicial approval process (both among Republicans and Democrats); the fact that the Republican proposal applied only to filibusters on judicial nominations. But his most egreious error is that he totally miscontrues the American notion of checks and balances. He rightly points out that America "holds its system of checks and balances in high regard", but is apparently under the misconception that "checks and balances" refers to the minority party's ability to constrain the power of the majority, rather than what it actually refers to...the ability of various branches of government to constrain the power of other branches. This confusion leads him to imply that the divisiveness over the issue derives from the fact that the Republican plan threatens the cherished checks and balances. That claim is simply ridiculous, but it of course leaves the impression of the Republicans as a threat to the "system".

Finally, on the back of the Gang of 14 deal last week which averted a vote on the "nuclear option", the BBC gave the topic one more shot, although this time the article was, perhaps understandably, not attributed to any specific author. The article allows unnamed Democrats to "point out" that 1) the filibuster was used by Republicans against Bill Clinton's nominees (the same claim propagated by Blumenthal in the Guardian) and 2) that there is little difference between the ratio of blocked nominations under Bush and that under Clinton. How one can sensibly "point out" things that are demonstrably false is unclear to me. (Can one "point out" that the sun rises in the west?) But the biggest whopper came with this claim by the BBC itself:

If the Republican side had gone ahead, in a plan which would have used the vote of Vice-President Dick Cheney to declare the filibuster unconstitutional, the upshot could have been to freeze Senate business altogether.

One barely knows where to begin to unravel this one.

1) Cheney doesn't even have a vote unless there is a tie, which was hardly part of the "plan".

2) The proposal was nothing more than an attempt to change Senate rules. It had absolutely nothing to do with declaring anythign "unconstitutional".

3) The only way Senate business might have been frozen would have been if Democrats had implemented their plan to, well, freeze Senate business in response.

A whole trifecta of errors all in one simple sentence. If the BBC was this efficient in running its more general affairs, it probably wouldn't have to be sacking people.

Mission statement

My primary aim with this site is to document and counter the misinformation about America that regularly flows forth from the British media. The quotation at the top of this site is a perfect illustration not only of the caricatured picture of America that elite British journalists themselves maintain, but also of how unabashed they are in pushing that caricature on to their audience. Americans are often presumed by foreigners to be provincial and uninterested in the rest of the world, which is supposed to contrast with a much more curious and much better informed British public. I don't know if they are particularly more curious, but better informed they certainly are not, at least not if they are relying on the British media, and in particular the state-funded BBC, for their knowledge about America. Hopefully I can demonstrate why that is the case.

I suspect, as an adjunct to this, I will delve into American politics itself in order to provide context to my criticisms of British coverage of it....and also because I will simply be unable to contain myself. In this regard, I expect this site will act as the outlet for my opinions that, until now, I have so inconsiderately foisted upon a select group of family and friends via e-mail, all of whom have been the involuntary recipients of my unsolicited rants. With the advent of this site, I can erase my guilt, knowing that if any of you continue to read my screeds, you are finally doing so by choice.

Lastly, a thank you to Richard J., who not only suggested to me that I start this site, but went through the effort of getting it set up for me. Apparently he really wanted to stop getting those e-mails.